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THIS IS AN ARCHIVED PAGE. * Report a problem Hide header Sections Home Search Skip to content THE NEW YORK TIMES CITY ROOM | COMPLAINT BOX | WEATHER FORECASTS Close search SITE SEARCH NAVIGATION Search NYTimes.com Clear this text input Go 1. NEW YORK 1. NEW YORK IS THE NATION’S MOST ‘HOSTILE’ PLACE TO APPLY FOR ASYLUM 2. NEW YORK TODAY WHY THE BELMONT STAKES WILL BE AT SARATOGA ON SATURDAY 3. WHAT DOES THE MAYOR’S NEW ZONING PROPOSAL MEAN FOR NEW YORKERS? 4. NEW JERSEY LAW WILL LIMIT ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT RECORDS 5. CONGESTION PRICING DELAY LEAVES THE M.T.A.’S BUDGET IN LIMBO 6. HOCHUL HALTS CONGESTION PRICING IN A STUNNING 11TH-HOUR SHIFT 7. WHAT HAPPENS NOW THAT CONGESTION PRICING HAS BEEN HALTED IN NYC 8. TRUMP’S GUN LICENSE MAY BE REVOKED BY NYPD 9. HOW WOULD CONGESTION PRICING HAVE WORKED IN NEW YORK CITY? 10. OFFICE BUILDINGS’ LOSSES ARE GROWING, WITH MORE PAIN TO COME 11. ON THE MARKET HOMES FOR SALE IN MANHATTAN AND STATEN ISLAND 12. ON THE MARKET HOMES FOR SALE IN CONNECTICUT AND NEW YORK 13. PROSECUTORS USE MENENDEZ COUPLE’S TEXTS TO DEPICT THEM AS COLLABORATORS 14. RUSH-HOUR DELAYS AGAIN HIT NEW JERSEY TRANSIT COMMUTERS 15. IN CONGESTION PRICING REVERSAL, HOCHUL FINDS ODD ALLIES, INCLUDING TRUMP 16. OUT & ABOUT MOMA’S GARDEN PARTY HONORS JOAN JONAS, LATOYA RUBY FRAZIER AND REFIK ANADOL 17. SUPPORTERS OF CONGESTION PRICING ARE FURIOUS AT HOCHUL’S ‘BETRAYAL’ 18. ZACK WINOKUR LEADS AN ARTS REBOOT AT LITTLE ISLAND 19. NEW YORK TODAY STUDENTS WALK OUT OVER GUN VIOLENCE THAT IS CLOSE TO HOME 20. HOW TOP N.Y. OFFICIALS HELPED A LOBBYIST CASH IN ON STATE GOVERNMENT 2. Loading... See next articles See previous articles NEW YORK SITE NAVIGATION * Home Page * World * U.S. * Politics * N.Y. * Business * Business * Opinion * Opinion * Tech * Science * Health * Sports * Sports * Arts * Arts * Books * Style * Style * Food * Food * Travel * Magazine * T Magazine * Real Estate * Obituaries * Video * The Upshot * Reader Center * Conferences * Crossword * Times Insider * Newsletters * The Learning Network * Multimedia * Photography * Podcasts * NYT Store * NYT Wine Club * nytEducation * Times Journeys * Meal Kits * Subscribe * Manage Account * Today's Paper * Tools & Services * Jobs * Classifieds * Corrections * More SITE MOBILE NAVIGATION Supported by City Room Blogging From the Five Boroughs Search COMPLAINT BOX | WEATHER FORECASTS By Michael Emmer December 11, 2009 11:00 am December 11, 2009 11:00 am P.C. Vey As we move through fall toward winter, I can sense the local news channels gearing up their daily love-hate relationship with the weather. COMPLAINT BOX GOT A GRIPE? Get a grip. Send your rant — no more than 500 words, please — to: metropolitan@nytimes.com. It was not always so. When I was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, television and radio weather reporters were usually called forecasters, not meteorologists. Their reports were short. Precipitation, temperature, wind speed. Take an umbrella. Dress accordingly. If a prediction turned out to be inaccurate, the consequences seemed more of an inconvenience than an occasion for outrage. These days, local news channels devote far more time to the weather, which, in turn, increases its influence over our lives. In October, for instance, our civic association in Marine Park, Brooklyn, canceled its annual Halloween walk after a weather prediction of a northeaster, which, as you may recall, tiptoed into town well into the evening, long after the hours of the scheduled event. My disappointed granddaughter was taken to see “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” instead. But it’s not just the inaccuracy that irks me. And it’s not the ubiquitous seven-day forecast that allows me to fret far in advance that it could rain the day I have to take my mother-in-law to the eye doctor. (Has anyone quantified the accuracy of those long-range forecasts?) Nor is it the need to give a weather update every few minutes on the early morning newscast to supplement the scrolling weather figures at the bottom of the screen. (I, too, can understand the importance of repetition when I’ve just staggered out of bed with only a vague idea of what day it is.) No, my real scorn is reserved for the network news devaluation of the word “storm.” When did every weather event beyond cloudy become a storm? Is there a simple front moving in with some wind and clouds and rain? Not on your life! Bring on “Storm Center,” “StormWatch” or “Storm Tracker.” And get ready for reporters in the field, braving the elements in New Jersey and Westchester and Flushing with fanfare and bravado usually reserved for correspondents in a combat zone. Thunder and lightning? Time for expanded coverage! And just let the temperature dip below freezing. No longer can we expect the arrival of “a few inches of snow.” Unless it’s only a flurry, every snow event is brought in on the wings of a storm. Reel out the stock footage of mounds of salt being loaded onto spreaders. Interview the sanitation truck drivers as they mount the chains on their tires, sometimes supervised by dour life-size stuffed animals squeezed behind the front grillwork. Get reactions from the valiant but unprepared out-of-towners from Minnesota as they hopscotch through ankle-high slush while the storm continues to swirl mercilessly around them. Can’t we reserve the word “storm” for something that’s really — stormy? Accustomed to such climatic exaggeration, I fully expect to be snowed in once an actual blizzard hits, my shovel pristine and unreachable behind the eight-foot drift against my garage door. And where will those meteorologists be then? Telecasting to a city whose power lines have already been downed by the whipping winds and hefty accumulations of a storm they could only dream of. Michael Emmer is a retired high school teacher who lives in Marine Park, Brooklyn. Read all columns in this series. * Share Comments are no longer being accepted. George December 11, 2009 · 11:26 am This is a Luddite screed. Simply put – with weather satellites, doppler radar and many other modern technological advances – weather prediction is far more accurate now than it was in the 1950’s and ’60’s. I know – I grew up then too. While local factors may make the actual severity (or lack thereof) of a weather-event difficult to nail down exactly – the fact is that weather forecasts are much more reliable now than in the past. And it is inevitable, as technology further advances, that accuracy will continue to increase. What the complainer here is really pointing out is his own faulty perceptions as to what was then versus what is now. As to the complaint about quantification of accuracy of long-range forecasts – they are there just as plain as day. What exactly do you think those “probabilities” mean when it’s stated that there is a 70% chance of thunderstorms etc.? Each weather event, under the conditions existing at the time, is measured and added to the data base that further refines these probablities. It’s mostly evident that this complainer just has a gripe with the world – a symptom of the societal problem known as “aging baby boomer grumpiness”. Perhaps the bigger problem, actually, is this Complaints Box thread – which simply confirms the fact that the Web has bred a society of blog posting whiners and gripers – or at least provided an all-pervasive outlet for them to blather on. Warren Howie Hughes December 11, 2009 · 11:31 am All Weather Forecasters should be rounded up and jailed (30 days will suffice) for continually providing erroneous information that commuters, school children and farmers so vitally rely upon! homer jay December 11, 2009 · 11:35 am weather forecasters or meteorologists or whatever they call themselves these days have to be correct only 30 or 40% of the time.with all the computers,satellites,etc how come every single forecast is different-and usually wrong? if they were in business they wouldnt last a month. it seems to me that all the “forecasters” on ny tv have lifetime jobs and never get fired if they screw up. thats the job i want in my next life :) DonO December 11, 2009 · 11:43 am The term “storm” is just part of the tabloidization of the local news. It goes along with the stunning developments and shocking revelations. The inaccuracies appear deliberate. If a meteorologist (yes, they actually go to college and major in meteorology, they only minor in modeling) says it’s going to be sunny and it snows, we get upset. If there is a 10% chance of drizzle and it turns out sunny, we thank our lucky stars and move on. Katie December 11, 2009 · 11:48 am I really doubt it would be the ” valiant but unprepared out of-towners from Minnesota” that would be caught unpreparad by weather–people from Florida or Europe perhaps. But MN? JR December 11, 2009 · 11:52 am Try living in Florida down Hurricane Alley and watch the weather panic ensue the first time theres a storm about 6000 miles away. Run immediately to Home Depot to get plywood, bottled water, and enough canned food to last a nuclear winter. Cannon Green December 11, 2009 · 12:17 pm Excellent topic for complaint box. Just as the local news doesn’t really report on actual local news much anymore, the weather segments have been turned into weathertainment schlock complete with the live field reports, matching outerwear, shots of snowplows … wait for it…snowplowing, interviews of befuddled motorists (“it’s wet!”), etc. Anyone who seriously needs weather info goes to the internet for the usable data. Watching the news, weather or sports on local TV is for brain-dead viewers who somehow find it enjoyable to watch the actors, er, newsteam, banter about the set. Just stop watching as I have and you’ll feel much better. SKV December 11, 2009 · 12:23 pm Michael, you have the solution in your own hands. Turn off the TV. (This is actually the solution to many complaints, by the way.) Open the door or window and look outside. Buy a pocket-size umbrella. And go live your life. Danny December 11, 2009 · 12:43 pm I fully agree with the writer. I think the problem is that weather reports suffer from the same thing that regular news reports suffer from – the need to be entertaining. No longer can these reports be just informative; they have to grip and entertain the viewer. Therefore, every chance of shower or flurry becomes a storm and every storm becomes a nor’easter. It’s all for the ratings, sadly. Dave December 11, 2009 · 12:45 pm Last night’s Fox local broadcast (10PM – Ch. 5) was a re-hash of the same news from the previous night’s broadcast. Evidently, Thursday was either a slow news day or the news from Wednesday was so gripping it was worth repeating. The only “new” news was the weather forecast. Nick Gregory gave us the update on the “bitter” cold and “fierce” windchills. Jeez – you would have thought we lived in Greenland. Hype and hysteria – spread over an hour broadcast, since if they gave you the whole forecast at the 10 minute mark, you wouldn’t need to hang around for the entire hour. Better to check the internet, then go to bed. mike December 11, 2009 · 12:49 pm These comments are harsh. Meteorology is unpredictable beyond basic generalizations for the same reason climate change skeptics are still paid credence by a minority. Literally thousands of variable down to the square mile you live on effect our weather and climate. Oh, and George, when the prediction is for 70% rain it DOES NOT mean that there is a 70% chance that it will (versus will not) rain. What it means is that 70% of the broadcast area or zip code (if you look online) or whatever will receive rain and 30% will not. The prediction is 100% (accuracy dependent on time until the event – see below). What I’ve frequently heard is that given current technology, any prediction beyond 3 days time is 50% accurate at best, with each additional day drastically reduced. That weekend weather you hear on Monday morning – worthless. Morris December 11, 2009 · 12:52 pm The truly irksome thing to me is how both the forecasters and news anchors uniformly seem to think that everybody always prefers warmer, drier weather, and feel compelled to give emotional reactions to it, making subjective value judgments about how much we’re going to love it or hate it, and especially how we just can’t wait for the blessed deliverance of spring, instead of simply appreciating the beauty of the cold season for what it is. ACW December 11, 2009 · 12:55 pm Meteorologists always over-predict on the assumption that no one would ever complain that the weather turned out better than they expected. Trust the Complaint Box to confound their expectations. JR @ #6, we have a similar problem in the NJ suburbs. All they have to do is HINT at the word “snow” and immediately the supermarkets are crammed with panic buyers emptying the shelves. Every stray flake raises the spectre of the Donner Party. (The solution, of course, is to stock up before the season sets in, which we do.) When I was growing up, Tex Antoine was using little pasteboard cartoons. True, meteorologists are wrong about half the time, but that’s still a better batting average than, say, economists. d k Luke December 11, 2009 · 12:58 pm The “storm” that so often is predicted during summer months from local weather broadcasters very often heads up the Hudson Valley to Westchester and Connecticutt leaving Long Island beaches bathing in sunlight while New Yorkers who had planned to spend the day at the beach decide to stay home. Rarely do they say where the rain will actually fall but in my experience from sunny Fire Island I see those “storms”, not even touching mid to eastern Long Island, rushing like witches with dark skirts across the western horizon on their way to Riverdale and then Westport. twc December 11, 2009 · 1:13 pm The Freakonomics blog provided a quick look at weather accuracy ( //freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/how-valid-are-tv-weather-forecasts/ ). The first commenter may be a little quick to dismiss this complaint–from the blog: The results were quite enlightening, as were some of the comments of the local meteorologists and their station managers. Here a few of the quotes we received: “We have no idea what’s going to happen [in the weather] beyond three days out.” “There’s not an evaluation of accuracy in hiring meteorologists. Presentation takes precedence over accuracy.” “All that viewers care about is the next day. Accuracy is not a big deal to viewers.” John Hackett December 11, 2009 · 1:24 pm Very witty. I like a good snow storm but have been disappointed so often by overblown forecasts that I no longer get my hopes up. And what about the way these breathless snow forecasts are framed, namely, a prediction of a snowfall range from an extremely small accumulation to a never-reached ‘as much as’ amount.. I pay attention to these things and about 99 times out of a 100 we get that disappointing tiny accumulation. Dn December 11, 2009 · 1:28 pm Shut off the tube, open a window on the laptop. Vi December 11, 2009 · 1:36 pm mike, a 70% chance of rain doesn’t mean that 70% of the zip code or viewing area will get rain. It means that given all the conditions of this particular day (temperature, humidity, etc) 70% of similar days on record had rain. The 70% is based on what has happened in the past, not what will happen in the future. Given that information, maybe you can be a little more forgiving of the forecasts meteorologists make. They’re not claiming to know the future — they’re basing it all on the data collected in the past. Maybe they could make that clearer, but they never claim to be psychics. Morris December 11, 2009 · 1:38 pm A postscript to my previous comment (#12): In respect to temperatures, the word “better” is not a synonym for “warmer.” Just give us the numbers, please! WIEEI December 11, 2009 · 1:48 pm Haze is the current term for air pollution. The pollution levels and particulate charts have dissapeared into weather limbo. If they say it’s raining I look out the window. Bruce Atlas December 11, 2009 · 1:56 pm For years, I have been saying that the purveyors af panic and panderers to pandemonium who self identify as weather experts exagerate in the interests of gaining TV ‘face time.’ I have never understood why a 1/2 of a 30 minute TV news program should be given ober to weather forecasts which are generally unreliable. Paul December 11, 2009 · 2:04 pm Out here in “flyover country” if you don’t absolutely hammer the warnings into the heads of idiots they’ll be out driving around on country roads on bald tires with their dirty children searching for lottery tickets or cigarettes in a blizzard. When the snow stops the sheriff has to yank their frozen corpses out of the ditch and call the coroner. It’s all very expensive. People here really don’t take warnings very seriously, so the newsfolks oversell it. SD December 11, 2009 · 2:08 pm I agree wholeheartedly. Although one aspect of the television reporting on any impending snow was omitted. Send a reporter out to the Home Depot on Queens Blvd to interview people exiting the store with snow shovels or rock salt. Must ask question: “What do you think about the big snow storm we are expecting.” …now back to Bob in the studio. Yesterdays Wine December 11, 2009 · 2:09 pm 30 to 40% accuracy? Well, let’s see if you did that well in baseball, for instance, you’d be a hall-of-famer and in a 15 year career would earn about $300 million! Let’s hear it for overpaid people who have low percentages built into their perceived excellence. Economists as someone else mentioned, meteorologists, .250 hitters in baseball, doctors who prescribe antibiotics like Tic-Tacs, the gang that projects budgets for almost any business or government entity (Slightly different than economist.) I’m always astounded, for instance, by the way the MTA introduces fare raises. The fare stays the same for 7 years, let’s say. Inflation is roughly 4% per year. So, the deficit mounts, has to be financed and forces us to borrow money that has to be serviced through interest payments, raising operating expenses even more. Finally, after all this wrangling, a huge fare increase is put in and everyone stomps his or her feet. Why not just calculate every year how much the inflation rate has been and slap it onto the metro card charge? If the fare was $2, then the next year it should be $2.08 or 2.10…. etc. I know it seems off point, but I’m so tired of people with lucrative jobs unable to produce. Ummm…. Wall Street geniuses of late anyone? Look how they did and how much they have been paid. Off with all their heads! Bobby Jpe December 11, 2009 · 2:25 pm Generally agree with the writer. Attn: TV stations. Stop the stupidity of making the weather delivery children into performers. They aren’t. Give it straight and brief. Stop wearing those overly contasting stripe suits (Mr. G and Nick)and we dont need 3 uodates per show, but at the same time and different per channel. Hey weather channel, do we need to see the reporter bent over against the wind in a real storm. No one should be outside.Tell the news, dont make it! WHAT'S NEXT Loading... * Previous Post Clash Continues Over New Firefighter Dispatching System * Next Post Potential Buyer Is Found for Gino LOOKING FOR NEW YORK TODAY? NEW YORK TODAY New York Today is still going strong! Though no longer on City Room, New York Today continues to appear every weekday morning, offering a roundup of news and events for the city. You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com or in the morning, on The New York Times homepage or its New York section. You can also receive it via email. LOOKIN FOR METROPOLITAN DIARY? Metropolitan Diary continues to publish! 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